These threads are rougher than I last remember.It means they're stronger, or so I say, they'll last long.Every morning when she wakes, the sunis invisibly high, her window long steepedin its shadow. She shuffles to the tablewhere I always lay her breakfast, her toast,her sweetened tea, her long grey napkin.I lead her to the wicker chair in the back roomand place the box of beads at her side table.The threads are really twine, because her handscannot quite feel the breadth of her old strings.She fingers a red bead, as large as her cracked thumb,and tries to bring it through the twine. Her handshakes from the effort; she forgets, and lets the beadfall through from off the other end. I stoopto pick it up: one of the plastic beadsI found on the colourful low shelvesof a toy shop. Later in the day, past lunch,past her frequent naps and toilet trips,when the sun appears again at the windowon the other end of the apartment,she'd have five strings of red and yellow beadstoo short for necklaces, too long for bracelets,that I'd buy. This ends her labours for the dayand she'd smile, once, and shuffle off to bed.Each night, while she's asleep, I take the strings of beads,undo their flimsy knots, and sort them backinto her waiting, empty box.

These threads are rougher than I last remember.Now, even I forget how many timesshe'd threaded those beads, one after the last,countless day after day.